Formal and Informal Assessment of Student Learning
Name: Daniel Ramalho
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
See Project Page for assignment details.
II. Preparation / Development
1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
Over the last few weeks, I have been informally assessing students daily and formally assesing them on a 5-7 day basis. My informal assessments include homework checks, classwork checks, white board questions (students answer questions on white boards and hold up boards when I tell them), I also ask questions to random students and not just those who have their hands up. I do this to see what they know and to engage them in the lesson. For formal assesments I have assigned a persuasive essay on cloning, a frog guts lab where students take notes during a virtual frog dissection and take quizzes at the end of each lesson on the frogs different organ systems, I have given Multiple labs with worksheets testing their knowledge and a test on genetics. Although it has only been 6 short weeks, I can say I have a very good idea of students strengths, weaknesses and capabilities.
spelling: assessment What grade level was this assignment for? - fogleman
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic
This GSE is not yet unpacked on the site. Where is your description? - fogleman
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
The goal of these lessons was to instruct students about how genes and traits are passed on from parent to offspring. I was able to begin the unit by using examples such as eye color, height, and every physical trait students have that they share with their parents. I gave a worksheet on what traits students had, "notice no one is the same." I had all students stand up at their desk and had one voulenteer at a time read off their list of 10 traits and what they are. Students who shared the trait stayed standing and students who had a different trait sat down, this backed up what I had said that no one is the same. From this I was able to give them instruction on dominant and recessive traits. "Why do we have different hair color, eye color, etc? Why do we see more brunettes then blondes, Dominant and recessive genes. The next day we did an interactive powerpoint presentation filling students in on vocab and concepts they will need to know i.e. homozygous, heterozygous, Punnett Squares, etc. With all this background information I began to assess students with worksheets and homework tasks on these words and concepts. We moved into reproduction and how traits were carried on. Then came the question, "Can two people have all the same genes?" Yes, Identical twins... What else? Now is when we started to discuss cloning. I was seeing daily what the students knew with either worksheets, homework, or whiteboards. If a large number was misunderstanding I would go back and try and fill in the gaps. Thats the beauty of assessment.
Several typos/misspellings. What were the informal assessments that you used during this unit? - fogleman
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
Part of the districts goals was to include more writing in science class. So I used the topic of cloning for a chance to work on their science writing. The assignment was worth 100 points (test grade). I included an outline for support for those who are not strong writers, or who need help organizing their writing. Students had to state 3 reasons against, or pro cloning and give accurate reasons pros and cons, and facts about cloning such as clones have the same DNA and Clones do not have the same personality or age. I also explained to students that in persuasive essays writers will mention something that may be against their arguement, and they would argue that it is not necessary or really that practical. Students with certain IEP's were required to name just 1 or 2 reasons and were not required to have perfect grammar, I also would check their outlines to see that they were on the right track.
5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
How do you know that your students understand what cloning means? It seems that this general writing assignment could be modified so that Ss would be responsible for more scientific understanding. For example, why not have them use one paragraph to define cloning? - fogleman
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry.
Evaluation Criteria is above under #5
Students had to use all the depths of knowledge in this assignment. They had to recall knowledge about cloning (level 1). Analyze if cloning pros outweighed or under weighed the cons (level 4). They organized and constructed an essay (level 2). And they had to explain the concept (level 3)
Where in your assignment did they have to explain a concept? Please don't fool yourself. DOK 4 involves extended projects. DOK 3 requires analysis that goes beyond stating facts or examples. - fogleman
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
High Performing
Student reached above standards in all categories in my rubric. This student had a creative well constructed knowledgeable essay that showed a clear understanding for the topic.
How do this Ss concerns relate to the common ethical dilemmas associated with cloning? What feedback did you provide? - fogleman
Average Performing
This student left out some detail and description for why cloning is bad. The student also did not mention an opposing idea and argue it, in other words she disagreed with cloning but did not include a possible pro as outlined in the rubric. Her essay was not bad it was about par on the standards of my rubric. Her understanding was average. Low Performing
This student did not give any conceptual information in the essay. The student wrote in all caps with many mistakes in all of my criteria categories and didn't appear to have a much of an understanding of cloning except for they look the same.
What did your Ss papers tell you about their ability to apply scientific ideas to think through difficult societal issues. How might your prepare them better for this type of task? - fogleman
10. For you formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
As mentioned before I differentiated the assignment for students with special needs by allowing for less support for their position and by providing and checking an outline for the essay. It addressed concepts I was trying to assess because students had to explain 3 major parts of cloning for their argument and 1 against a total of 4 which would show an understanding. If students could make an arguement as to why cloning would be good or bad they must have the knowledge on the subject.
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
I gave informal worksheets which were organized in parts. I could see which major parts students struggled on when I skimmed through them before going over them together, I marked the students having significant trouble. My favorite was the white board activity. Students hold up white boards with answers to questions I ask. They hold it up and I can look around for multiple wrong answers, in the event that many students were wrong I would take a few minutes going over it to hopefully correct their wrong ideas. Also every student was forced to participate actively in this discussion by raising their whiteboards.
The formal assessment not only was able to show me who really understood the material and who didn't, but also who has trouble with writing. Some students who typically answered correctly during informal assessments wrote poor essays. Because I was more focused on the concepts students were allowed to rewrite their essays for points back, using my feedback as a guide of how to improove.
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
What I noticed in the data between girls versus boys in one of my classes was a 2-3 point difference in the average. Girls were slightly above boys. This is a reasonably small difference in a class of 24. The class had two more boys than girls 13-11. I was told by the Lang Arts Teacher that the girls are for the most part, the better writers in this class. This was noticeable because only two girls were below standard in their essay structure where five boys lost points for essay structure. However, what I saw was a almost equivilant number of boys and girls that uunderstood the concepts.
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
As I previously stated in #11 students had the chance to REDO their essays after I had discussed with the class what I saw that was very good, and what I saw that was not so good. Individuals with low grades got comments/ feedback on their papers to read and analyze. I put a REDO with detail of what to fix if they had a failing grade. Some of the students who were not strong writers needed a different type of support. I demonstrated good structured essays from volunteers and even posted up some of the classes best essays on the board for students to look at.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instruments?
Next time, I think I would rather give a choice of long essay problems for students to do if they did not like the one long essay. I was unhappy to see some weak writers and strong science students fall short of their potential and I think essay questions rather than a persuasive essay may have helped them to better demonstrate their knowledge.
For those who picked the essay, I would show some examples of previous years students essays and highlight the way the topic sentences were written, and how they explained the concepts with a definition and examples to follow. They can use those examples as a guideline.
I believe this assignment really challenged the middle and low achieving students but was a bit to easy for many of the high achieving students. I had some extra credit for them to use and cite an exterior source, all that it required was a website source. Next time, I would make the extra credit a bit more rigorous, maybe make it a scholarly article quoted and cited in MMA format. "MLA" ?? - fogleman
Do you think that this assignment was consistent with the GSE you cited? Why or why not? Are there other issues related to DNA and genetic engineering that are more interesting or compelling? - fogleman
Name: Daniel Ramalho
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
II. Preparation / Development
1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
Over the last few weeks, I have been informally assessing students daily and formally assesing them on a 5-7 day basis. My informal assessments include homework checks, classwork checks, white board questions (students answer questions on white boards and hold up boards when I tell them), I also ask questions to random students and not just those who have their hands up. I do this to see what they know and to engage them in the lesson. For formal assesments I have assigned a persuasive essay on cloning, a frog guts lab where students take notes during a virtual frog dissection and take quizzes at the end of each lesson on the frogs different organ systems, I have given Multiple labs with worksheets testing their knowledge and a test on genetics. Although it has only been 6 short weeks, I can say I have a very good idea of students strengths, weaknesses and capabilities.
spelling: assessment
What grade level was this assignment for? -
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic
LS1 (7-8) - 3
This GSE is not yet unpacked on the site. Where is your description? -
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
The goal of these lessons was to instruct students about how genes and traits are passed on from parent to offspring. I was able to begin the unit by using examples such as eye color, height, and every physical trait students have that they share with their parents. I gave a worksheet on what traits students had, "notice no one is the same." I had all students stand up at their desk and had one voulenteer at a time read off their list of 10 traits and what they are. Students who shared the trait stayed standing and students who had a different trait sat down, this backed up what I had said that no one is the same. From this I was able to give them instruction on dominant and recessive traits. "Why do we have different hair color, eye color, etc? Why do we see more brunettes then blondes, Dominant and recessive genes. The next day we did an interactive powerpoint presentation filling students in on vocab and concepts they will need to know i.e. homozygous, heterozygous, Punnett Squares, etc. With all this background information I began to assess students with worksheets and homework tasks on these words and concepts. We moved into reproduction and how traits were carried on. Then came the question, "Can two people have all the same genes?" Yes, Identical twins... What else? Now is when we started to discuss cloning. I was seeing daily what the students knew with either worksheets, homework, or whiteboards. If a large number was misunderstanding I would go back and try and fill in the gaps. Thats the beauty of assessment.
Several typos/misspellings.
What were the informal assessments that you used during this unit? -
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
Part of the districts goals was to include more writing in science class. So I used the topic of cloning for a chance to work on their science writing. The assignment was worth 100 points (test grade). I included an outline for support for those who are not strong writers, or who need help organizing their writing. Students had to state 3 reasons against, or pro cloning and give accurate reasons pros and cons, and facts about cloning such as clones have the same DNA and Clones do not have the same personality or age. I also explained to students that in persuasive essays writers will mention something that may be against their arguement, and they would argue that it is not necessary or really that practical. Students with certain IEP's were required to name just 1 or 2 reasons and were not required to have perfect grammar, I also would check their outlines to see that they were on the right track.
5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
How do you know that your students understand what cloning means? It seems that this general writing assignment could be modified so that Ss would be responsible for more scientific understanding. For example, why not have them use one paragraph to define cloning? -
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry.
Evaluation Criteria is above under #5
Students had to use all the depths of knowledge in this assignment. They had to recall knowledge about cloning (level 1). Analyze if cloning pros outweighed or under weighed the cons (level 4). They organized and constructed an essay (level 2). And they had to explain the concept (level 3)
Where in your assignment did they have to explain a concept?
Please don't fool yourself. DOK 4 involves extended projects. DOK 3 requires analysis that goes beyond stating facts or examples. -
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
High Performing
Student reached above standards in all categories in my rubric. This student had a creative well constructed knowledgeable essay that showed a clear understanding for the topic.
How do this Ss concerns relate to the common ethical dilemmas associated with cloning? What feedback did you provide? -
Average Performing
This student left out some detail and description for why cloning is bad. The student also did not mention an opposing idea and argue it, in other words she disagreed with cloning but did not include a possible pro as outlined in the rubric. Her essay was not bad it was about par on the standards of my rubric. Her understanding was average.
Low Performing
This student did not give any conceptual information in the essay. The student wrote in all caps with many mistakes in all of my criteria categories and didn't appear to have a much of an understanding of cloning except for they look the same.
What did your Ss papers tell you about their ability to apply scientific ideas to think through difficult societal issues. How might your prepare them better for this type of task? -
10. For you formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
As mentioned before I differentiated the assignment for students with special needs by allowing for less support for their position and by providing and checking an outline for the essay. It addressed concepts I was trying to assess because students had to explain 3 major parts of cloning for their argument and 1 against a total of 4 which would show an understanding. If students could make an arguement as to why cloning would be good or bad they must have the knowledge on the subject.
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
I gave informal worksheets which were organized in parts. I could see which major parts students struggled on when I skimmed through them before going over them together, I marked the students having significant trouble. My favorite was the white board activity. Students hold up white boards with answers to questions I ask. They hold it up and I can look around for multiple wrong answers, in the event that many students were wrong I would take a few minutes going over it to hopefully correct their wrong ideas. Also every student was forced to participate actively in this discussion by raising their whiteboards.
The formal assessment not only was able to show me who really understood the material and who didn't, but also who has trouble with writing. Some students who typically answered correctly during informal assessments wrote poor essays. Because I was more focused on the concepts students were allowed to rewrite their essays for points back, using my feedback as a guide of how to improove.
Good -
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
What I noticed in the data between girls versus boys in one of my classes was a 2-3 point difference in the average. Girls were slightly above boys. This is a reasonably small difference in a class of 24. The class had two more boys than girls 13-11. I was told by the Lang Arts Teacher that the girls are for the most part, the better writers in this class. This was noticeable because only two girls were below standard in their essay structure where five boys lost points for essay structure. However, what I saw was a almost equivilant number of boys and girls that uunderstood the concepts.
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
As I previously stated in #11 students had the chance to REDO their essays after I had discussed with the class what I saw that was very good, and what I saw that was not so good. Individuals with low grades got comments/ feedback on their papers to read and analyze. I put a REDO with detail of what to fix if they had a failing grade. Some of the students who were not strong writers needed a different type of support. I demonstrated good structured essays from volunteers and even posted up some of the classes best essays on the board for students to look at.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instruments?
Next time, I think I would rather give a choice of long essay problems for students to do if they did not like the one long essay. I was unhappy to see some weak writers and strong science students fall short of their potential and I think essay questions rather than a persuasive essay may have helped them to better demonstrate their knowledge.
For those who picked the essay, I would show some examples of previous years students essays and highlight the way the topic sentences were written, and how they explained the concepts with a definition and examples to follow. They can use those examples as a guideline.
I believe this assignment really challenged the middle and low achieving students but was a bit to easy for many of the high achieving students. I had some extra credit for them to use and cite an exterior source, all that it required was a website source. Next time, I would make the extra credit a bit more rigorous, maybe make it a scholarly article quoted and cited in MMA format. "MLA" ?? -
Do you think that this assignment was consistent with the GSE you cited? Why or why not? Are there other issues related to DNA and genetic engineering that are more interesting or compelling? -